James Pattinson rules himself out of Ashes

Australian pace bowler James Pattinson has been ruled out of the upcoming Ashes series due to the lower back stress fracture. The bowler had suffered an injury during the tour of Bangladesh and was replaced by Jackson Bird. However, now the 27-year-old has decided to take an indefinite break to ponder over his injury-prone career. He last played a Test match for Australia in 2016 against New Zealand in Christchurch.

The career of Pattinson has been filled with injuries and despite having an ability to run through the opposition batting line-up with his pace, he has not played consistently for his country. He was first ruled out of the rest of Australia’s domestic session with a bone stress injury last year after New Zealand tour. He then had a recurrence of a back injury, followed by a hamstring issue. However, he made a successful return to first-class cricket during the 2016-17 season by picking up 24 wickets for Victoria and helping them to win the Sheffield Shield title.

I will discuss my future with medical staff

James Pattinson was extremely disappointed with the fact that he will miss the prestigious Ashes series at home later this year in November. He also cleared that he will discuss the options with the medical staff to try and avoid such an injury in future. “Obviously I am extremely disappointed with this setback after just getting back into a good run of playing cricket. “I’m especially disappointed to miss out on the possibility to play in a home Ashes Series. Over the next few weeks I will discuss all available options available to me with medical staff, to work out the best plan to prevent this from happening again,” he said.

Australia’s Sports Science and Sports Medicine Manager Alex Kountouris said Pattinson had reaggravated his previous injury. “Soon after returning from the UK, following the Champions Trophy and his county cricket contract, James presented with back pain. We made the decision to withdraw him from the tour of Bangladesh and monitor his pain. He returned to bowling after a period of rest and unfortunately he is still experiencing pain with bowling. During this time we have been monitoring him, including regular scans and recent imaging has confirmed that James has begun to reaggravate his previous lower back stress fracture. As such, he has discontinued bowling as part of his recovery which unfortunately means that he will be unavailable for the beginning of the Sheffield Shield and subsequently Ashes campaign,” he said of his injury.

However, Kountouris was hopeful of the fast bowler recovering from the injury and soon return on the field. “Whilst this is very disappointing that James has reaggravated this old injury, we are confident that he can recover from this and return to playing. However, James’s current injury is complex because his history of old stress fractures from his teenage years means there is one part of his spine that absorbs more force than it would normally do. This is the area the of current reaggravation but we are hopeful that we can put strategies in place to help manage this when James returns to playing,” he concluded.